Sourdough Bread (Mis)Adventures

 

My sourdough starter was finally ripe enough to use. So I tackled the Multigrain Sourdough Boule, since I wanted to try out my new Dutch oven. First, let me say that this is not a recipe where you heat the Dutch oven empty in the oven prior to adding the dough. I do want to try one of those, but want to buy or make some better oven mitts before then. Mine are getting pretty old and thin. This recipe is also one that I call "cheater sourdough" - one where some commercial yeast is added to boost the leavening effects of the sourdough. I also plan to make some more "authentic" sourdough that does not require any added yeast, sometime in the not too distant future.  
This recipe calls for a cup of "King Arthur Harvest Grains Blend", which I assumed was just a blend of different flours. No problem, I have oats, barley, rye, millet, rice and several kinds of wheat, so I could blend my own. But when I looked at the ingredients, I discovered that it wasn't a flour blend at all. And not sure why they call it "grains" because most of it is seeds.

So, I just used what I had to create my own blend, replacing the rye flakes with rolled oats and the millet with quinoa (realizing afterwards that I did have millet in my cupboard...). Of course, I had no idea what the proportions were, so I just winged it. When I poured the boiling water over it, as per the instructions, it just soaked up all the moisture and when it was combined with the other ingredients, the resultant dough was the consistency of play dough that was just starting to dry out. I added water, and then more water, and then it was too much water, and it wasn't combining well in the bowl of my mixer. So, I massaged it in by hand. And then had to add more flour, including some rye flour since I didn't have any rye flakes to add to the "Harvest Grain Blend". And it turned out well, in spite of my misadventures. It did end up kind of flat on top, so I'm not sure if it's supposed to be that way or if I had over-risen it and it fell during the baking. But it doesn't seem extra dense, and the taste and texture are good.  But this loaf is so huge that it wouldn't fit into the generous sized bags that I have for bread, nor large freezer bags. I had to "steal" an extra large freezer bag from my quilting supplies, where I use them to store/organize projects. 

And I think I need to get a lame. My steak knife didn't do a very good job of scoring the top of the loaf prior to baking. 
I also made some more crumpets - again without the rings - and I found that whole wheat taste much better than rye. But they also taste much better when they're fresh than when they're reheated. And while I do toast store-bought crumpets, I find mine are already brown enough and I'm afraid toasting may scorch them. 

Finally, I made a loaf of Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread, also a "cheater" recipe. I'm not sure what went wrong, but while the Multigrain Sourdough Boule had been too dry, this one was much too wet. I really couldn't knead it, because it was just this limp, sticky blob. I tried adding more flour, and finally managed to get it firm enough to knead, but didn't want to add too much, as the recipe did say that it was supposed to be slightly sticky. But it didn't rise as highly as I felt it should. I haven't tasted it as I put it directly into the freezer. I still had most of the Whole Wheat and Rye Sourdough Bread that I made using discard, the huge multigrain boule, some crumpets and parts of 2 storebought loaves in the fridge, so I definitely did not need more bread out. But next time, I'll be more careful about adding sufficient flour to attain a dough consistency that I feel is appropriate. The funny thing is I measured the ingredients by weight, not volume, so it should have been accurate. But maybe I forgot to zero out the weight between ingredients? Who knows? I'm sure it will still be tasty. I also found that I had to bake it for significantly longer than the time stated in the recipe, but that was likely due to the dough being over-wet. 
I would like to continue "playing" with bread, but I have retired my sourdough starter to the fridge for now. I only have so much freezer room and I can only eat so much bread, and, unless I start dropping off loaves in my neighbour's mailboxes, I will have to limit myself to what I can consume in a reasonable amount of time. 

Christmas Table Toppers and Runners

 

After sharing this picture with my sisters, one of them said how much she liked my table topper and jokingly suggested that my next project for them should be Christmas table toppers. Well, this particular sister, Nancy, never really asks for anything. She's sweet, loving and generous. So, since she was the one doing the asking, I decided to go ahead and do it. But one of the problems was getting hers to her. She lives in the USA, and US Customs now wants any duty paid prior to shipping. I had tried to ship a quilt to one of my ex-husband's nieces in the USA, as she's expecting a baby. But when I tried setting up an account to pay any duty, I couldn't get it to work with my Canada Post account. Even if I didn't have to pay any duty, I would still require this account to say so. The alternative was to download an app, and I really didn't want another app on my phone (it's already giving me grief because so much memory is taken up by apps that I don't need, but can't uninstall). So, it's become nearly impossible to mail anything to the States. But another sister, Cindy, would be visiting Nancy in March. So I had to finish the table toppers in time to ship Nancy's to Cindy so that Cindy could take it with her. And that is why I have been making Christmas table toppers in January.  
Initially, I thought of making them all identical or nearly identical, using the Triangle Frenzy pattern. But that would require me buying a few metres of fabric to make 4 runners. Then I rummaged in my Christmas fabric and my patterns, and figured I could probably come up with enough to make the table runners/toppers, making each one unique instead. 

First I found a wide striped fabric that I was able to use with the Triangle Frenzy pattern. I didn't want to call it Triangle Frenzy or Christmas Frenzy or even Christmas Triangles. Since it has boughs and holly, I decided to call it Deck the Halls. It finished at about 41½" x 18". 

I had admired the Christmas Star topper pattern in the same magazine in which I found the pattern for Democracy Defended. It can also be found as an individual pattern here. This finished about 29" square (supposed to be 30", but that's not how mine turned out). The parallelograms in the red fabric are made using the stitch and flip method. a method I prefer to avoid, as it wastes too much fabric. But I was in a hurry to get these done and didn't want to take the time to calculate the measurements I needed. So I ended up with 16 large triangle leftovers in each of the red and green fabrics. After I was finished all of the toppers/runners, I stitched the triangles together into a large (about 13" square) mat, quilted with a layer of Insul-Bright so that I can use it under hot dishes for Christmas dinner. 

Next, I made the Ribbon Wreath pattern found in this book from my quilt library. 

It's meant to be a wallhanging, but I figured it would work as a table topper as well. 

It works out to 25" square. 
Finally, I had the Christmas Bells table runner pattern (slightly modified pattern called Holiday Bells currently available). 

This is the largest of the 4, measuring 52½" x 19½". I had one gold fabric that I could have used for the applique blocks in my stash of 1-metre fabrics, but I felt it was too light and didn't contrast well enough with the solid cream fabric. So, I raided the fabric that I have in my Coronation UFO that I planned on making to commemorate the coronation of King Charles III. I felt that I could "steal" these 2 squares of gold fabric and still have sufficient to finish that quilt. At the rate I'm going, I might not finish until William's coronation, however. 

I had 4 individually cut metres of this large Christmas floral print that I stitched together and used for the backing, and stitched all 4, plus my table mat, on the same backing. I used the Christmas Holly pantograph and some Aurilux thread in a Christmas variegation (white, red and green). 
Meanwhile, I had also decided to include my sister-in-law in receiving a table runner/topper, and added Christmas Birds, which I completed last August, to the collection. 

Pinning it to the design wall with the rest, which had yet to be quilted and bound, I shared this photo with my sister, Nancy, and told her she got first choice since it was her idea. She chose the Christmas Bells runner. 
I would find it a tough choice as I think they are all very pretty. Hopefully, the remaining sisters will be able to come to an amicable agreement on who gets which one. 

Sourdough Again

 

For Christmas, I bought myself an enamel-coated cast iron Dutch oven. I've been wanting one to try some of the sourdough recipes that require it for baking. So, I'm back to making sourdough starter again. As my house can be rather chilly in the winter, I was keeping the jar of starter on my heated cat mat on the lowest setting. I decided to feed it with my rye flour, since mine was getting older and needed to be used up. This time, I was determined to really keep up with the discard. 

I made pancakes, 

biscuits,

bread,

and crumpets, converting them all to whole grain as much as possible. I still had about half a cup of discard in the fridge, when I decided that I didn't actually want to use just rye flour. Rye has a pretty strong and distinct flavour, which is not necessarily what I want in things like pancakes. So I switched to white for one "feeding" and then whole wheat for the next feeding.  But then I smelled a mold smell in the starter. I was hoping it was just the combination of flours that imparted an off smell - sourdough has a weird smell anyway, and it had been mostly rye flour, which also has a unique smell - so I fed it again and decided to see what happened. I also returned the jar to the top of the fridge, thinking that maybe it was too warm on the cat mat. But when I smelled it again prior to the next feeding, I could still smell mold. So, it got dumped in the compost, and I've started again, scrubbing the jar well, and bleaching the plastic lid (I've since been told that I should use peroxide instead of bleach, as peroxide destroys the spores and bleach does not). I was going to use the little discard I still had in the fridge to start a new batch, but it when I checked it, it had visible mold, so it joined the starter in the compost. Puzzling because when I made sourdough starter previously, I had both starter and discard in my fridge for months, and never had any mold.This time I used whole wheat, and have the jar on top of the fridge instead. I considered other options as newer fridges really don't get warm on top like older ones did. My hot water tank, which is one of the suggestions in the King Arthur sourdough recipe, is down in the basement, so not very practical for regular feedings... I have since discovered that there is actually an electric sourdough starter warmer available. I'll have to see how enthusiastic I become about sourdough to see whether or not I can justify the expense. 

History of the Waldenses: A Book Review

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for My name's sake.

Matthew 24:9

I've had this book in my library for many years. As a matter of fact, it had my married surname inside the front cover, and I reverted to my maiden name sometime around 2005/2006. So, I've owned it for over 20 years. But it's not light reading, and it's definitely not for the faint of heart. I think I started reading it at least a couple of times, the most recent, according to Good Reads, was June of 2024. I made it about halfway through by November of that year, and then it languished. Until last night, when I was suffering insomnia, and got up and decided to read, and I finished it.
As the text at the beginning of this post indicates, the Bible forewarns us that we will suffer for our faith. But it doesn't generally go into graphic detail. As a matter of fact, Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." So I'm really not sure how this book fits into that verse. I do believe that we should know our history and be aware of what has gone on and is going on in the world around us. I'm aware that throughout history, many Christians have been persecuted, imprisoned, tortured and martyred for their faith. And having read the book, The Great Controversy, I was aware of a brief history of the Waldenses. And personally, I think that's all I needed to know about them. 
This book is more appropriate for a reference book, that you might want to refer to if you're doing research. As a matter of fact, it's actually quoted in The Great Controversy. Otherwise, it's not something I would recommend for general reading. I also find that the writer tends to use flowery language (the Waldenses' valleys and homes "smiled") and occasionally waxes eloquent and poetic in his descriptions of the mountains and valleys and rivers... I felt like telling him to get to the point. Maps would have been far more beneficial than poetic descriptions. I read the writings of Ellen G. White, mostly written in the mid to late 19th century. I read the King James Version of the Bible, dated 1611. And mostly, I don't have any problems understanding what they are saying, occasionally referring to a dictionary or a Bible commentary. But I found J. A. Wylie hard to follow at times. I can read a whole paragraph and wonder what on earth he just said. And he often inserted French phrases in his writing, assuming that his reader would understand what he was talking about. I didn't. Even though I took 4 years of French in school. 
While I am inspired by the example of faithfulness on the part of the Waldenses, my biggest takeaways from this book are: 

1. Don't trust your enemies. The Waldenses repeatedly over the centuries trusted the promises of their persecutors, only ending up paying the price in blood. 
2. If your enemies give you an ultimatum to give up your faith or leave, then LEAVE! Especially if you have a safe place to go. Even if leaving would create hardships. At one point in the book, the Waldenses were given the option to give up their faith or leave, as all their liberties were being removed. Yes, it would have posed a great hardship to leave and travel over the mountains in the dead of winter to freedom and safety in Protestant lands. But by choosing to stay and fight, many ended up dead, many more imprisoned and when Protestant leaders negotiated their release, there was only a small fraction of them still alive and they ended up having to leave in the dead of winter anyway.
3. Don't get so attached to a location that you are willing to sacrifice your safety to return there. At one point, the author tells us that the Waldenses regarded their valleys as their promised home as much as the Jews regarded the land of Canaan. I'm not sure if that's the author's interpretation or if it was their actual belief. And while I do believe, as the Scripture says, that God prepared a place for them in the wilderness to escape persecution (Revelation 12:6), it was no longer a safe retreat for them. And I also believe that this world is not our home, so attachment to any location in this world should only be temporary. (Hebrews 11:16). Honestly, I couldn't understand the determination of the 800 to return to the Piedmont rather than settle in relative safety in the Protestant nations. I don't know if it was actually the direction of God or their extreme longing for "home" that made them return, so I really cannot judge. But it seemed like an extremely foolhardy decision to me. And they suffered severe hardship as a result, with their original numbers being reduced to only 400. And even when the Duke of Savoy made peace with them, and the remaining refugees were invited to return, they lived a severely circumscribed life. I have to question if that was actually God's plan for them, or if He just allowed them to follow the desires of their hearts. I believe that we should be willing to suffer hardship and even death for the sake of the gospel, as the Apostles did, and many other Christians have over the centuries, when that is what God calls us to do. But it is foolish for us to place ourselves in a position of hardship if that is not where God wants us to be. As I said, I honestly don't know if God actually directed them to return, but it is a cautionary tale to make sure that it is God's voice and not just our own hearts speaking. 

I'm on the fence as to whether or not I will keep this book in my library. I could keep it for reference, should I require it (although it is available online as well). Or maybe find it a new home so that I have the shelf space for books that I find more encouraging than this one. 
Now, I'm going to try to tackle History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century. I'm 115 pages in of 870 pages in rather small print...  

 

Maple Leaf Forever Scarf and More

 

I introduced the Maple Leaf forever scarf back in November when it was almost finished (see post here). I finished it in the meantime and had sufficient yarn to make a matching toque, but I didn't want to make it using multiple double pointed needles. While I do own some, I have never used them to actually knit in the round and have no desire to, using them only when I need them for a cable or other fancy stitch. Especially when I also own knitting looms. While I can generally hand knit faster than I can "loom", I just didn't want the hassle. There's probably a way to make a toque with a circular needle instead of double pointed needles, but I would have had to find a pattern. And I had made loom-knit toques before. However, when it came down to it, I didn't remember which pattern I'd used. I think I finally found it, but now I don't honestly remember which pattern I used. I believe it was for a slouchy from LoomaHat, but she has a lot of different patterns and videos. I modified it anyway as I incorporated the maple leaf design from the scarf pattern and made it shorter, so it wouldn't be as slouchy. If I had to do it over again, I would move the maple leaf closer to the brim and made the toque even shorter as it's still slouchy, and I don't like slouchy hats. Yes, I know I was using a slouchy pattern, but my previous efforts didn't turn out slouchy at all... Perhaps it was a totally different pattern that I had used before. 
I finished both the scarf and the toque by the middle of November, but I've been so busy getting other projects finished before Christmas that I haven't blogged about it until now. One of the projects was Tartan Delight, another one of Fabric Cafe's 3-yard quilt patterns. 

This one is the It's a Snap pattern from the book Pretty Darn Quick. I had purchased the fabric on one of my quilt shop hops. I love tartan fabric and I think it turned out very nice. The recipient suggested blues and greens, and this was the best match I had in my 1 metre/yard collection. I used a royal blue minky dot for the backing. 

Anise is the pantograph I chose. It was one I received for a pantograph of the month program that I was in briefly, but I haven't used it as it didn't really appeal to me. However, now that I've stitched it out, I do find it rather pretty, though it will likely never be one of my favourites. 
I worked on this one at the Lutheran church sew days, but when I got it home and put it up on my design wall to measure for the borders, I thought, "What is wrong?" It definitely did not look right. I finally figured out that I had gotten all the blocks in the correct order in each row, but then I had stitched the rows together in the wrong order. I think I only ended up with two out of the 6 rows in the right place. I gave the stitch ripper a workout that day. 
Next up was Higher Ground, using the Stepping Up pattern. I had gotten the pattern as one of the freebies that Fabric Cafe shares. They switch out their freebies every couple of months, so it's a case of you snooze, you lose. But I try to keep up with their pattern giveaways, so I don't lose out. 

I was kind of loathe to part with this one because the colours and the fabrics are just really awesome, but the recipients loved it. I had to make a few design changes - a couple were deliberate, based on my fabric available (I didn't have quite enough of the navy blue, so had to rearrange fabric placements, and decided to make the mauve border wider). And I accidentally made one too many of one block and one too few of the other, so my rows are arranged slightly differently than the pattern. But it's still a beautiful quilt, in my opinion. 

I had some mauve minky dot in my stash that I used for the backing and Zoidberg Feathers for the quilting. This is a pantograph that I have used before, but I had to choose something that would work with minky - nothing too dense - and would look good on the quilt top. It's probably one of my favourite designs - it's very pretty and works up relatively quickly. 

As a matter of fact, I decided that it had the right qualities for stitching up fabrics for bag-making, and I used it for quilting the fabrics for a travel bag for my grandson, seen here on the longarm, and a backpack for my daughter. I was really hoping to get these bags finished, plus a couple more quilts, in time for Christmas, but I just ran out of time. As a matter of fact, I didn't even get all 3 of my Christmas trees up and decorated until Christmas Eve. And other Christmas decorating around the house was pretty sparse. Hopefully, I'll get the bags finished soon and you'll hear more about them then. 

Wavewalker by Suzanne Heywood: A Book Review

I read an excerpt from this book online and thought it sounded rather interesting and decided to put in a request for it through my local library. It came in shortly before Christmas, and after my family left on Christmas Day, I decided to relax by reading it. Briefly, it's the story of the author's family leaving behind their everyday lives when she was a small child, and sailing off on a "remake" of Captain Cook's third voyage. What should have been an awesome adventure turned into years of drudgery, neglect and emotional abuse.
I can't honestly say that I enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong: the author is a good writer, knows how to engage her readers and keep them interested. But her parents were just so aggravating. They were both self-centred, immature, entitiled narcissists who had no business having children. And if they did, the most responsible thing they should have done was leave the children on someone's doorstep. I read the whole book waiting, hoping for them to grow up and behave like responsible adults. But they never did. Picture this: your young daughter experiences a near-fatal accident in a storm that almost destroyed the boat. When you finally get her to a doctor, he explains that she will require surgery, and you respond, "What if we do nothing?" I can barely describe how disgusting I find this couple. They reminde me of those Instagram "influencer" parents that portray their perfect family life to the world, but when the real "behind the scenes" story comes out, it's a very different tale. Too full of themselves, they would never see themselves as child abusers, but that's what they were. They may not have beaten or sexually abused their children, but there are other kinds of abuse: emotional abuse, neglect, failure to provide the necessities of life. That the author not only survived, but went on to get the education she so desperately wanted, had a successful career and a happy marriage and family, is a testament to her persistence and resilience. 
But there are a few things that puzzle me in this story. The first one was when she called the "Help Line" while she and her brother were living in Australia. Why was there no follow up? She and her brother had essentially been abandoned by their parents and left to fend for themselves with only quick, brief phone calls when they were in a port from which they could make a call, and very rare visits. Why wasn't this reported to Child Protective Services and an investigation done? I know this was 40-odd years ago and laws/regulations have changed, but still it was an obvious case of neglect. Was it because they were foreigners? Or because they were already teenagers by this time? Surely our obligation to protect children doesn't end because they don't happen to be citizens of the country, or because the author was almost 18? Hmm, I wonder what legal age in Australia was at that time...
The other thing that really puzzles me is Chapter 28, "Fiji: Looking for Wavewalker". Personally, I know nothing about the Fijian culture, but reading this chapter made me feel like I was reading a spy novel, or something. Why did it seem that almost everyone was colluding on keeping the author from finding out what actually happened to the boat? Furthermore, what difference did it make? I was perplexed as to why it was so important to the author to find the boat that was the site of so much anguish, neglect and abuse. She spent time and money travelling to Fiji from England to do so. The only thing I can conclude is that she needed it for closure, and for confirmation that what she went through actually did happen. And maybe I can relate to a certain extent. I know how discombobulated I felt when I discovered that the house I had lived in, in Saskatchewan, had been torn down. It had been a really rough patch in my life and my marriage, and I found it rather disorienting that the house was gone, as if that part of my life had been erased. 
Regardless of her reasons, my sympathies are with the author, and I'm glad she's achieved success and happiness in her life. My biggest take-away from this book is how thankful I am for the parents I had. They were definitely not perfect - none of us is - but they were so much better than the author's parents that they weren't even in the same league. Thank you, Lord, for my parents.

Bad Choices

There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.

Proverbs 16:25 NIV

I actually considered a few different names for this quilt. One was Fabric Vomit because it's so busy that you can barely discern a pattern. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, kind of like the dog ate some fabric and then vomited up this quilt. Except that I don't have a dog. I also thought of Anything But Subtle, because this quilt kind of shouts. Another name I came  up with was That Wasn't a Good Idea. And it wasn't. It really wasn't, but I ended up calling it Bad Choices because I made more than one bad choice in the making of this quilt. Let me tell you its story. 
I wanted to make a quilt for someone and was trying to come up with an idea that would be relatively quick and use fabric from my stash. A lot of my 1 yard/metre collection was either boring or not quite what I wanted. So, I was rummaging around in my stash to see what else I could come up with. 

I found some leftovers from Chelsea Rose Pop, and there seemed to be enough of these two that I might be able to make a 3-yard quilt work, if I could only find more fabric from the same line for the third fabric. Or maybe an alternate fabric that would coordinate well. Unfortunately, the only other fabrics I found from this line were just small scraps - not enough to work in a 3-yard quilt. And I didn't want a really loud 3rd fabric. 
My first bad choice was not learning from Chelsea Rose Pop. I never really liked that quilt because it was too busy with these fabrics and difficult to discern the pattern of the blocks. 

My nephew Peter gave me this book for my birthday. As I flipped through the pages, I found a few projects that I wanted to try, one of which was the Shadowed Square Lap Quilt. The Shadowed Square is a quilt block consisting of a half square triangle of the focus fabric on one half and the other half is varied piecing. In this project, there are 6 variations. 
Since I couldn't find a good coordinating fabric to make a 3-yard quilt with the Chelsea Rose fabric, I opted to make the Shadowed Square quilt as a scrappy quilt. After all, I really loved Weather Alert and so I thought that the scrappy look would work great here as well. However, my second bad choice was deciding to use the Chelsea Rose fabric as the focus fabric. There's just too much going on in this quilt top to use this large and bold print, and the half square triangles really aren't big enough to feature this fabric adequately. It's a very pretty fabric, and would have been great in a not-so-busy pattern with more subtle complementary fabrics. But my third bad choice was to use fabrics that I thought would coordinate with the colours in the focus fabric, and it was just too much. 
My final foolhardy decision was to use a small fleece throw that I had as the backing.

It was just taking up space that a quilt could take up and I figured why not use it as a quilt backing. Unfortunately, since it was just a cheap little blanket, it stretched A LOT! When I first compared it to the quilt top, I knew that it would be a tight squeeze. It was maybe 2-3 inches wider than the quilt and 4-5 inches longer. But I figured I could make it work. I used pins to attach it to the leaders and wasn't planning on using the clamps on the sides. But it was droopy on the sides, so I tightened up the quilt by rolling the pole. But I still found that I had to use the side clamps, which made it very difficult to quilt because I had to keep repositioning them to keep them out of the way of the machine when I was quilting close to the edges. And as I advanced the quilt, the backing stretched lengthwise, which pulled the sides in. I had to keep pulling on the sides of the backing to make sure it covered the whole quilt top. And I ended up trimming off about 10 inches off the bottom when I was finished quilting, plus 1-2 inches off the top. As I said, it stretched a lot, and the backing is a lot thinner than it would have been had it not been so stretched out. And the quilt top ended up rather pucker-y, especially along the left side. But the puckers seemed to mostly work themselves out with the binding, and it just looks extra puffy in some areas. But I did notice that it tends to curl back on the bottom when I hung it up to take the picture, thanks again to the over-stretching. Perhaps I should wash it in hot water and the shrinkage in the cotton quilt top would make up for it... 
The quilting design I chose is Sweetpea Scramble. It's quite a pretty design and I'm hoping I won't hold a "grudge" against it because of all the challenges I had quilting this quilt. It's one of the Golden Thread designs that is now sold by Handi Quilter. 

Hmm, I do have more fleece throws, but will I use them as quilt backing? If I decide to try it, I will check out the throw first to see if there is more stretch in one direction, and put that direction horizonally on the frame. Secondly, I will likely use regular quilt batting, instead of polyester fibrefil, as the quilt top is easier to manage with regular batting. I will also have to be more careful to ensure both backing and top are aligned, as my top in this quilt seemed to be migrating to the left, which is part of the reason for more puckers on that side and I had more problems with the backing disappearing on the left. And finally, I would make sure that the size of the quilt top is more appropriate to the size of the throw. 
I had already decided that I was not going to burden anyone with this quilt when I put the blocks on the design wall. But I decided to put it together anyway because what else was I going to do with those odd blocks? So, now that it's finished, it's going to remain in my own collection. And it's kind of grown on me. Even though, it is quite loud and busy, the fabrics and colours are quite pretty.  And I actually like it better than Chelsea Rose Pop, although it will definitely never be my favourite quilt.  
Now for an object lesson. Sometimes we can make important life decisions - ones that are far more consequential than fabrics in a quilt -  that seem right at the time. Or fit our agenda. Or make us "happy". But, as the Bible verse at the beginning of this post says, those decisions can not only get us into trouble, but sometimes the results are permanent, sometimes very obvious and ultimately sometimes can result in death. Ours or someone else's. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. And that's a pretty serious consequence for a "bad choice". I want to align my decisions with the Word of God, the Bible, and avoid those serious consequences of misguided choices.